Gymkhana

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Restaurant review: Gymkhana, 42 Albemarle Street, London | The ...

The memory of its Isle of Shuna mussels and its coastal lamb curry has remained with me ever since, and I wasn't surprised when the place picked up a Michelin star last October.

The new place is called Gymkhana, a name that could lend itself to bad-taste jokes about horsemeat and pony curry.

Instead of starters, mains and puddings they offer seven courses: the Gymkhana bar, nashta (breakfast) dishes, kebabs and tikkas, game and chops (there's a striking array of game – quail, grouse, guinea fowl, roe and muntjac deer), curry and biryani, sabzi (side dishes) and puddings.

Chettinad duck, minced with garlic and black pepper, was served inside a tent of dosa pancake like a wildly sophisticated samosa; while Keralan moilee mussels (presumably sourced somewhere nearer than Kerala) occupied a rich bath of coconut milk, mustard seed, onion, ginger and curry leaves.

Indian puddings often defeat me, but the 'jaggery and black pepper caramel custard', though unappealing displayed on a willow-pattern plate, was fine and treacly.

Gymkhana, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

C and I had a genuine marital fight over which bread came with what (his duck-egg bhurji with lobster, £12.50, had cute little rolls with diced raw shallot, which description doesn’t do them justice).

I had lamb nalli barra with pickled onion, turmeric and ginger (£25).

I finished the dish convinced it meant something poetic, like “lamb of the ancient goddess”.

THE SPICE IS RIGHT... A classy spot where the sumudri khazana stars scallops, clams, mussels, monkfish and langoustine in a coconut sauce (£20.95), and the tandoor oven yields tender lamb marinated in a blend of ginger, garlic and garam masala (£27) Escape from the bustling street for contemporary cuisine in an imposing Grade II-listed building.

Go to this former art deco cinema complete with gilded vaulting for aromatic curry-leaf cod flavoured with mustard seed and coriander, or the comforting Lahori gosht – lamb cooked on the bone in ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom and coriander (both £18.95)

Gymkhana: Home Page

Restaurant review: Gymkhana, 42 Albemarle Street, London | The ...

The memory of its Isle of Shuna mussels and its coastal lamb curry has remained with me ever since, and I wasn't surprised when the place picked up a Michelin star last October.

The new place is called Gymkhana, a name that could lend itself to bad-taste jokes about horsemeat and pony curry.

Instead of starters, mains and puddings they offer seven courses: the Gymkhana bar, nashta (breakfast) dishes, kebabs and tikkas, game and chops (there's a striking array of game – quail, grouse, guinea fowl, roe and muntjac deer), curry and biryani, sabzi (side dishes) and puddings.

Chettinad duck, minced with garlic and black pepper, was served inside a tent of dosa pancake like a wildly sophisticated samosa; while Keralan moilee mussels (presumably sourced somewhere nearer than Kerala) occupied a rich bath of coconut milk, mustard seed, onion, ginger and curry leaves.

Indian puddings often defeat me, but the 'jaggery and black pepper caramel custard', though unappealing displayed on a willow-pattern plate, was fine and treacly.

Restaurant review: Once you've dined at Gymkhana, you'll never ...

So, in a pretty booth with acres of space, a marble-topped table and what I think is delightfully flattering lighting, I have a dinner of such sublime tastes and precise flavours, such elegant presentation and with such charming service that though I have one of the most exhilarating jobs in the country, I wish I still had my old one, as it was a 30-second walk from Gymkhana.

The marble-topped table is soon covered in flecks of crisp pastry, and we're spooning out perfect fluffy rice that is fragrant with spices, slivers of tender venison and muddling it with the pastry and that raita.

A note on pricing: this dish could easily feed two (we took home a doggy bag) but there is no indication of this on the menu, nor a kindly word from the waiter.

I don't think we have done justice to the kebabs and tikkas section of the menu, but the pleasingly scorched broccoli drizzled with green-chilli raita is a start.

I am thrilled to have eaten the chicken dish but my arteries won't thank me; I feel peculiar from the richness of the meal – perhaps the tasting menu next time, or the scandalously good-value three-course lunch for £25.

Grace Dent reviews Gymkhana | London Evening Standard

Perhaps they should put a sign at Heathrow Terminal 4 arrivals for the new Indian bar and restaurant Gymkhana on Albemarle Street, because if you’ve missed butter chicken, keema naan, tikkas, kebabs and masalas, there’s no finer place to go.

I was first aware of Gymkhana — which uses seasonal British ingredients, with a focus on tandoori oven dishes — four weeks ago when my most ardent, committed foodie cohorts began talking dreamily of the tandoori guinea fowl breast with green mango chat, and the kid goat methi keema.

Or for cocktails in Gymkhana’s intimate bar, which is a modern-day interpretation of a 17th-century East India punch house, with porcelain chequerboard floor tiles and inky blue leather ‘love booths’.

This was either a terrific practical joke to lure me to a bad dinner, or Gymkhana was one of the greatest restaurant openings London has seen in 2013.

I’ll talk you through my Gymkhana expedition: everything from the Gymkhana bar and Nashta menus looks extraordinary, but do have the kid goat methi, which is essentially a small serving of rich stew with miniature bread rolls, but is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Gymkhana, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

C and I had a genuine marital fight over which bread came with what (his duck-egg bhurji with lobster, £12.50, had cute little rolls with diced raw shallot, which description doesn’t do them justice).

I had lamb nalli barra with pickled onion, turmeric and ginger (£25).

I finished the dish convinced it meant something poetic, like “lamb of the ancient goddess”.

THE SPICE IS RIGHT... A classy spot where the sumudri khazana stars scallops, clams, mussels, monkfish and langoustine in a coconut sauce (£20.95), and the tandoor oven yields tender lamb marinated in a blend of ginger, garlic and garam masala (£27) Escape from the bustling street for contemporary cuisine in an imposing Grade II-listed building.

Go to this former art deco cinema complete with gilded vaulting for aromatic curry-leaf cod flavoured with mustard seed and coriander, or the comforting Lahori gosht – lamb cooked on the bone in ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom and coriander (both £18.95)

Gymkhana: restaurant review | Jay Rayner | Life and style | The ...

Meal for two, including drinks and service: £140 The story of Indian food in Britain is a complicated one full of self-loathing, fizzy lager and industrial quantities of ghee.

The attempt to create a rarefied version of restaurant food from the Indian subcontinent has always felt like a reaction to what's going on at the mass end of the business.

Fans of luxury Indian restaurants will point out, quite fairly, that it's grossly patronising to argue that Indian restaurants can never be expensive just because so many of them are cheap.

Give thanks, then, for Gymkhana, the new Mayfair restaurant from Karam Sethi of Trishna in Marylebone, which manages to be glossy and yet still deliver food with a serious kick and intent.

From the curries the butter pepper garlic crab is an outrageous bowl of freshly picked white meat under avalanches of the good stuff.